Are you ready to drink a signature A$AP Rocky whiskey? The prolific rapper’s long list of brand collaborations now includes hand-crafted spirit Mercer + Prince.
A$AP Rocky is no stranger to facilitating big deals and collaborations.
Fresh off his AWGE and Mercedes-Benz collab as well as his A$AP Worldwide x Eddie Bauer team-up as guest artistic director at PacSun, it seems he won’t be stopping his entrepreneurial pursuits any time soon.
The rapper, model, and style icon is adding whiskey connoisseur to the mix, as Rocky is diving headfirst into the spirits game by announcing an all-new whiskey brand: Mercer + Prince.
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“This is the only category of spirits that would allow us to have a contemporary approach,” Rocky said via Vogue. “Whiskey has a reputation of being more macho and traditional, but we wanted to redefine it for everybody—taking influence from different regions and cultures, and blending it into one. The way to push culture forward is for everything to be blended.”
As with anything Rocky touches, this product is rare — right down to the way the brand describes its production: distilled and aged over four years in American white oak barrels, then blended in Canada. It boasts a fruity aroma, mixed with whiskey’s signature smoky-sweet taste. Discerning palates will note the Japanese Mizunara oak that adds complex notes of caramel, cinnamon, baked apple, and vanilla.
The elevated alcohol can be enjoyed both as a cocktail and neat, “You don’t even need anything to drink it with—you can just drink it neat,” says Rocky. “I don’t know too many liquids that you could just take straight out the bottle. That was the point—it’s like instant gratification.”
ASAP gratification, if you like.
The rapper was especially cognizant of the bottle’s packaging and presentation, which features a unique design that captures two built-in drinking glasses on both ends. “I first drew the design on a napkin,” he said, no doubt leaning on his ever-growing experience in the fashion game in bringing the design to life.
He sees Mercer + Prince as a statement piece for your bar cart, he explains, but this spirit, which retails for a tidy $29.99 per unit, is made for sharing. As Rocky put it: “It’s a social bottle.”
The brand name itself connects directly to Rocky’s roots, representing two of his favorite cross streets in Soho in downtown NYC— two streets that A$AP Mob are all too familiar with as they ran around making a name for themselves during their original come-up.
For Rocky, tying it back to the city he was born and bred in was important.
“What I love about New York is being able to just walk around the streets and soak up inspiration like a sponge,” he said. “When you think of that cross street at Mercer and Prince, you see so many different cultures and types of people walking around. It’s diverse, and that same template went into making this whiskey.”
As for what we can expect going forward from Rocky, well it seems he’s taken the Travis Scott blueprint and run off with it, “I love collaborating,” he concluded to Vogue. “You get to adopt different traits and specialties to make a perfect project.”
Cheers to that.
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